Heretofore, as an example of information storage apparatus, there have been provided disc recording and/or reproducing apparatus for reproducing a piece of music and movies or the like by using a disc-like recording medium such as a CD, a CD-ROM and so on. As a disc recording and/or reproducing apparatus of this kind, there is known a disc player 1 shown in FIG. 1, for example.
This disc player 1 houses three disc cartridges 2 at one time and has a function to continuously reproduce three discs housed in the disc cartridges 2 or to reproduce tunes recorded on the discs housed in the three disc cartridges 2 in the arbitrary sequential order. To this end, this disc player 1 includes a changer apparatus 3 capable of housing three disc cartridges 2, a conveying mechanism for selectively conveying an arbitrary disc cartridge 2 between the changer apparatus 3 and the disc drive apparatus and a reproducing apparatus for chucking the disc cartridge 2 conveyed by this conveying mechanism and reproducing a piece of music or the like from the disc or the like.
The changer apparatus 3 is attached to the central portion of the front surface of an apparatus body 4, and three cartridge insertion slots 5a, 5b, 5c are opened in the front surface thereof. These three cartridge insertion slots 5a, 5b, 5c are formed in the form of three layers at a predetermined interval in the upper and lower direction. on one sides of the respective cartridge insertion slots 5a to 5c,there are provided eject buttons 6a, 6b, 6c for individually ejecting the disc cartridges 2 inserted into the corresponding cartridge insertion slots 5a to 5c.
The front surface of this changer apparatus 3 can be opened and closed by an openable and closable lid 7 attached to the front surface of the apparatus body 4. On the both sides of operable and closable lid 7 there are located a number of operation buttons 8 such as a power button for turning on or off a power, a forward button, a stop button and so on. When this operable and closable lid 7 is opened to expose the front surface of the changer apparatus 3 and the disc cartridges 2 are individually inserted into the cartridge insertion slots 5a to 5c,the three disc cartridges 2 are housed into and held at predetermined positions, respectively.
On the rearward of the changer apparatus 3 there is provided a conveying mechanism for selectively picking up and conveying an arbitrary one of the three disc cartridges 2 housed at the predetermined positions. In the vicinity of this conveying mechanism, there is disposed a disc reproducing apparatus for chucking a disc which is a recording medium of the disc cartridge 2 supplied to and loaded onto the predetermined position from this conveying mechanism and reading a music signal or the like from the disc to reproduce a piece of music or the like.
However, the above-mentioned conventional disc player 1 needs totally three motors of a motor for elevating and lowering a take-out holder for selecting and taking out an arbitrary disc cartridge 2 from the three disc cartridges 2 housed in the three cartridge housing portions, a motor for conveying a cartridge holder for holding the disc cartridge 2 thus taken-out to the disc reproducing apparatus and a motor for chucking and rotating the disc cartridge 2 supplied to this disc reproducing apparatus at a predetermined speed as driving sources. Accordingly, since the independent motors are used each time the disc cartridge is taken out and the disc cartridge is conveyed or the like, the apparatus needs a number of motors being used so that the weight of the whole apparatus increases, which is also uneconomical.
In view of the aforesaid problem encountered with the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to solve the above-described problem by providing a recording medium loading apparatus and a recording medium recording and/or reproducing apparatus in which the whole of the apparatus can be made light in weight and small in size by reducing the driving sources and in which a manufacturing cost can be reduced.